Tabs

The flavour of Kolkata

Kolkata Maidan- The lungs of the city. Lovingly shot by Arindam Patra.

Friday, February 17, 2017

A tete-a-tete with Soumya Shankar Ghosal

An ardent lover of Kolkata like this blogger,
Soumya Shankar Ghosal, a management consultant by profession and a photographer by passion, recently made our city proud
when he secured the third position in ‘The 20 Most Influential Street
Photographers for 2017’ list from across the world derived from a poll on the street
photography website www.streethunters.net. His group Streets of Calcutta is
perhaps one of the world’s largest street photography archives dedicated to one
city. It was nice to engage with him in a conversation which is as follows. The
photos in between are handpicked by the ace lensman from his vast body of work.

1. What does this achievement mean to you? How
important is this listing?

Achievement is recognition of your efforts.
However, saying so, I must reiterate the fact that achievement is not the
ultimate goal. Photography is solely pursued for oneself. The next stage is
sharing the joy with others. The third stage is the part of recognition. I am a
self-taught photographer and didn’t have the privilege of having a master.
Hence, recognition in terms of apperception is an acid test that the photograph
has passed exam of sharing the joy with the viewer.

The recent listing is sincerely prestigious one.
More so because the list features some of the most gifted
photographers I look up to and sharing a little space with them is wonderful. I thank each and every one who felt I should be a
part of the top 20 out of the 124 photographers nominated from across the
world.

2. Going back to where it began. What got you
hooked to street photography and when?

I photographed everything that caught my attention
but slowly realized that I had developed an inclination towards Street
Photography from around 2008. The street is
full of surprises. Exploring the same lane at different times will offer
different subjects and perspectives. Exploring streets and knowing the unknown Calcutta is always a fun
learning experience.

Oh Calcutta! This is what strikes me each time I
explore the city. Although, I was born and have lived in this wonderful metropolis for 36 years, I rediscover the city each time I go out on photowalks.
I am never bored walking the same alleys over and over again. Calcutta is a city of diversity. Documenting
the diversity helps me learn about the city better.

3. Tell us about Streets of Calcutta. How has the
experience been so far?

Streets of Calcutta
was born out of a passion to create a shared learning platform for a city-based
street photography archive. The objective was to enthuse newcomers who love street
photography. What started with a single individual has spread to over 20,000
across social media platforms. We don’t consider SOC as a group. Technically,
you don’t need to either
join or leave. As long as you love
photographing Kolkata, we consider you a
part of it.

The forum is quit active in terms of the number of
posts on the group as well as Instagram. Apart from the offline interactions have done an online review session which had received more than 225 photos in just 1 hour.

The journey has been pretty exciting! Whatever Streets of Calcutta has achieved is
because everyone took an ownership of the subject.
Friends Indrajit Lahiri, Nilanjan Pathak and Ayanava Sil deserve a special
mention. A special ‘Thank you’ to the brilliant photographers who have
encouraged us – Mr. Debarshi Duttagupta, Ms. Lopamudra Talukdar, Mr. Bikas Das
and Mr. Asis Sanyal.

4. What do you consider a significant achievement
of Streets of Calcutta?

The most significant achievement is Streets of
Calcutta has been able to bind together like-minded individuals to educate
others about street photography. This genre is not documented much. So when the
newcomers, the experienced, the good, the better and the best come together, a vast repository of knowledge is created. We
believe in the power of shared learning. I am proud
to say, Streets of Calcutta has been able to show street photography in a
different light in its 2 years of existence.

5. You do photowalks in the city under Streets of
Calcutta. What has been your most memorable photowalk experience?

Every walk is memorable. And yet, there is one walk
I particularly remember since it was not about numbers but that of sheer passion for photography
of my fellow enthusiasts. That was February 2015 and the walk coincided with an
India-Pakistan match. And yet 41 participants turned up.

SOC conducted one of its largest photowalks in August
2015 in association with Amazon India
at Shovabazar to celebrate World Photography Day. The participation was
recorded at 176. Planning was vital and had to be meticulously executed to
manage the big turnout efficiently. Team leads
were appointed and briefed in advance and group sizes were kept at a suitable
number based in the experience of the team leads. The whole program was managed
efficiently with the constant support of the leads and the participants.

6. What are the plans of Streets of Calcutta this
year?

We have planned a lot for everyone at SOC in 2017.
The execution of the same is being worked upon. Mostly this is related to
increasing the offline interactive sessions. Last year we had showcased the
work of more than 60 individuals at our exhibition ‘Soul of Kolkata’ in
association with ITC Sonar and Nikon. This year too we plan to go ahead with its version 2.0 but with a twist.